I MAY only be scratching the surface of this story, but I have been itching to write it...

There, I have got rid of all the obvious jokes, now hoping that it won’t make you too uncomfortable, I will get to the facts.

The Newcastle Hoppings used to be – and probably still is to a lesser extent – full of weird and wonderful shows.

One show that used to appear there regularly 50 years ago was Alfred Testo’s flea circus.

The show was also famous enough to appear at London’s Olympia.

The Flea Circus was always a big attraction, especially for youngsters, even though they always came away scratching.

But, one of our reporters visiting the show all those years ago discovered that running the circus, for her then 80-year-old dad, was Pauline Testo, who hailed from Gateshead.

Now here was a chance to get a real insight into the life of a performing flea.

“Don’t worry,” Pauline told our reporter as he scratched the back of his head, “we never let them escape.

“It wouldn’t do to let the customers catch a flea. They’re much too precious – the fleas, I mean, not the customers.”

As his itch spread, our intrepid reporter was sure there was a dancing flea pirouetting on his torso – but in the best of traditions, he carried on his investigative report. In the meantime, Pauline, who had been training fleas for over thirty years, picked up her talented charges and dropped them into the little black box, where they lived their daily lives.

“The best fleas,” said Pauline, “come from Consett steelworkers’ socks.

“The steelworkers used to get them from the sand – but the supply’s been dropping for a long time,” she said, sadly. “Britain doesn’t seem to have fleas any more.”

“Shame,” said our reporter, thinking it seemed like the right thing to say.

“It’s only the Irish who still keep this circus going,” went on Pauline, who used to perform at Saltwell Park, in Gateshead and still went to the Town Moor Hoppings.

“It’s from Ireland we get most of our fleas nowadays.”

Our reporter decided not to confirm that part of the story with any Irishmen around, even small Irishmen.

“Mind you,” said Pauline, “We did once hear of a new house in Gateshead that was absolutely crawling with them. But before we got there the public health man had got rid of them.”

“The cad,” said our man.

But in 1959 times were hard for the small stage version of the Greatest Show on Earth.

Fleas took a month to train, they lived another three months and there were 15 in the show.

What brought Miss Testo into the business?

“The circus is in the family,” she told our man. “My mother was a lion tamer.”